


The Daemons that Await the Dawn

by avianscribe



Series: Bad Ends [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Bad end, Daemons, Gen, Transformation, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-22 13:55:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avianscribe/pseuds/avianscribe
Summary: Humanity wouldn’t survive to see the Dawn.
Series: Bad Ends [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623556
Comments: 26
Kudos: 58





	The Daemons that Await the Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a series of "Bad End" drabbles -- these all will not be happy! I'll be posting them as a series. Be prepared for the angst...!

Humanity wouldn’t survive to see the Dawn.

They made a good show; building greenhouses, shoring up supplies as days grew shorter and nights interminable. Glaives gathered meteor shards and laid powerlines to outposts, bolstering the smattering of settlements that managed to hold fast against the dark. 

Then one day the sun failed to appear, and the Scourge took hold.

It happened slowly -- almost without notice, at first, but once started, it spread like wildfire. Without the Oracle, nothing could be done to stop it. Whole communities stopped responding to queries, and hunters sent to investigate never returned. Out in the darkness, twisted shapes picked away at the land and each other.

People weren’t turning to daemons in the streets; they would just quietly leave. Sanya stopped reporting in. Cindy stopped making her runs from Hammerhead. Cid walked off one day and never returned. Iris and Gladio clung to each other, like each was afraid the other would vanish if they let go -- but one day Iris just wasn’t there. 

(Gladio spent that day out killing daemons with a ferocity he’d never known before -- and didn’t once imagine his sister’s face on any of them. Not once. Better she die on his sword than be cursed to life as a daemon. Better that.)

Later that very week Gladio received a cryptic voice message from Prompto: “When it happens, make your way to Galdin.” Prompto’s voice sounded strained and odd, its timbre garbled and too deep. 

Prompto didn’t come back to Lestallum.

Not long after, Ignis pulled Gladio aside. “I can’t stay here,” he said softly.

Gladio almost asked why not, in anger fueled by his worry, but then he saw how Ignis’s sightless eyes were able to track him, were focused on his face. The words died on his tongue. 

Instead of speaking, he pulled Ignis in and squeezed him tight. Ignis murmured in his ear, his breath puffing at his hair. “I’ll be waiting at Galdin Quay.”

Ignis left then, and did not return.

That was how it was. 

Lestallum grew emptier and emptier -- and the skeleton crew remaining maintained the daemon-repelling lights as well as they could, but they wouldn’t last long. The radios stopped announcing casualties, and started reporting blackouts and safety zones; and soon went silent altogether. 

When he woke one day (morning? night? With no daylight he had no way to tell the time, and cell service had shut down a while back) Gladio felt different. He immediately noticed the darkening patch on his arm, bleeding into the shape of his tattoo, and he knew: it was his turn.

There wasn’t anyone for him to tell; no one for him to report to, since Cor had disappeared earlier in the week. So Gladio just headed down to the gate, casually waved at the nervous Glaive on duty there, and… left.

He traveled then, keeping to havens until the dwindling magic in them made his skin itch -- and then he just traveled across the countryside. He rested when he needed to, but he needed to far less often than he expected.

And as he traveled, he changed.

* * *

The years of darkness went on, swallowing all the lands that once belonged to Lucis. Over the empty spaces, the remnants crawled, sometimes even trailing the human trappings they’d mostly shed -- a buttoned jacket here, the shreds of trousers there.

One dark day, there was a shift. A ripple of magic, that most would not be able to sense -- but three shapes broke from the milling daemons and made their way to the shattered shore at Galdin Quay.

They stood on the pier, waiting for their king.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to enjoy more hurt, subscribe to the series; there will be more! >:)


End file.
